Solid surface cover materials used in flooring or interior walls include rigid surfaces such as wood, metal, marble or ceramic tile, and resilient surfaces such as vinyl or rubber. They are simple to keep clean and have less of a problem harboring bacterial growth than do textile products. However, solid surface cover materials lack the softness and the textile quality of carpets and textiles.
Flooring products such as tufted, knit, knotted or woven carpets, and upholstery or interior wall coverings such as velours or velvets, provide abrasion and wear resistance, as well as cushion and a soft textile hand, by anchoring fibers onto a backing and holding them upright, e.g., as in pile carpet. Compared to rigid solid surfaces, these textile upright oriented fiber products are less durable, tend to collect dust and dirt, provide spaces that allow the growth of bacteria, and are difficult to clean and sanitize.
Hybrid structures, with partially fibrous and partially solid faces such as those disclosed by Petry U.S. Pat. No. 3,943,018, have also been developed. These reduce but do not eliminate the limitations of regular tufted, velours, or flocked textile surfaces.
Attempts have been made to provide flat or profiled, e.g., sculpted surfaces consisting of fibrous layers impregnated with a plastic matrix. For example, see Goldstone U.S. Pat. No. 4,035,215 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,098,629, and Zafiroglu U.S. Pat. No. 6,063,473. Generally, such products have surfaces with a semi-fibrous feel and spaces between the fibers may be sufficiently sealed to prevent bacterial penetration and dirt collection. They also provide somewhat higher abrasion resistance than regular upright-oriented fiber structures. These products are largely have a stiff leathery appearance rather than a textile feel. Also the cost of preparing dimensionally-stable dense fibrous products, combined with the cost of impregnating and heat setting can be very high.
Other techniques have been tried to produce inexpensive, dirt and bacterial growth resistant, abrasion resistant surface covering materials with a textile fiber appearance. Gregorian U.S. Pat. No. 3,860,469 discloses flat or textured film-like skins placed on top of a pile-like surface. These products combine the qualities of carpet with the solidity of vinyl or rubber, but lack the textile quality and aesthetics of carpets.
Another tactic has been to assemble a basically flat textile fabric over a sublayer of adhesive backed with various layers of sub-surface reinforcement. WO 9919557 utilizes a woven face fabric backed by reinforcing layers. Vinod U.S. Pat. No. 5,965,232 discloses a decorative fabric attached to dimensionally-stabilizing or cushioning layers. The fabric is further surface-stabilized. Laminates having a flat fabric face tend to delaminate and/or fray at the edges unless the fabric is thoroughly impregnated with adhesives. However, such impregnation adversely affects the textile feel and cushioning quality of the laminate.
Despite these and other advances in the surface covering material art there remains a need to provide a cover material that has all of the properties of abrasion and edge fray resistance, thermal, structural and dimensional stability, good barrier to dirt and bacteria, together with soft textile hand, cushioning quality, and appearance characteristics extending over a full spectrum of tufted, knit, woven or velour products.